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Air New Zealand // Official Air New Zealand blog. We fly across New Zealand & to & from Australia, the South West Pacific, Asia, USA, Canada + UK ✈
We have a new blog - please join us at www.theflyingsocialnetwork.com for the latest news from Air New Zealand.
Air New Zealand’s friend to the stars, Rico, gained worldwide attention in June when he secured an exclusive interview with Lindsay Lohan on the Skycouch while she was under house arrest.
That interview is today live on YouTube, with Rico chatting to one of the world’s most talked about celebrities, who will soon feature in the upcoming movie GOTTI: In The Shadow Of My Father. The interview highlights how the young Hollywood actress was quite at ease in the confinement of her home while the world’s media focused on her issues with the law.
In the interview Lindsay was gifted a bracelet and necklace from New Zealand designer Meadowlark.
Rico’s full interview with Lindsay Lohan can be found on www.youtube.com/airnewzealand
Lohan is the second celebrity to feature in the On the Skycouch series, which was launched this month. Rico has previously chatted with David Hasselhoff and also spent time in LA with E! News host Giuliana Rancic, whose interview will go to air soon.
Lohan reveals in the interview that she loves to travel, but has not yet made it down to New Zealand.
“I’ve not been, but I would love to go. I hear it’s beautiful,” she told Rico. “I just know the beaches are beautiful – and I have some very nice friends from there. You’ll have to invite me sometime.”
ENDS
Issued by Air New Zealand Public Affairs
Air New Zealand’s furry friend to the stars, Rico, has today launched his new series of celebrity YouTube interviews, with David Hasselhoff the first to experience Rico’s cheeky interrogation style in the hot seat that is the Air New Zealand Skycouch.
The Hoff lived up to his reputation as an entertainer, revealing that he found it hard doing mouth to mouth scenes with his female Baywatch colleagues, and that he far prefers being known as David Hasselhoff than The Hoff.
The Hoff’s popularity has reached new heights in recent times having just finished being a judge in the UK hit Britain’s Got Talent, while his next TV foray will be playing the role of an ‘adult film’ star in the US show Sons of Anarchy. The show’s current series features well known kiwi actor Joel Tobeck.
Rico’s full interview with The Hoff can be found on his YouTube channel www.youtube.com/airnewzealand
During the filming of the series last month, David Hasselhoff, E! News host Giuliana Rancic and actor Lindsay Lohan each lounged around with Rico on the Air New Zealand Skycouch.
The Hoff was gifted a pair of jet-black speedos with the word “Kiwi” emblazoned across the rear, while Giuliana was surprised with an All Blacks T-shirt. Lindsay’s gift will be revealed in early August when her interview goes to air.
During filming, The Hoff voiced his appreciation for the great service Air New Zealand cabin crew provide during his regular travel between Los Angeles and London, in which he only ever flies Air New Zealand.
As part of Rico’s new series, Air New Zealand is the first Kiwi company to run an online retail campaign integrated within video content on YouTube, offering those who visit Rico’s YouTube channel and watch the video the opportunity to enjoy discounts on some of the airline’s key international routes, starting with flights between Los Angeles and London. Offers will differ with each
YouTube Australia & New Zealand Head of Media Solutions Karen Stocks says Air New Zealand is continuing to push marketing boundaries.
"Air New Zealand is one of our most innovative advertisers on YouTube and the Rico campaign has been a worldwide success on our video platform," says Mrs Stocks.
Air New Zealand General Manager Marketing Mike Tod says Rico’s global popularity coupled with increased interest in Air New Zealand’s award winning in-flight products and service, particularly in the United States, is an ideal platform to begin exploring online retail campaigns integrated within video content on YouTube.
“Social commerce is in its relative infancy. As Air New Zealand continues to the push the boundaries of social media engagement, we’re creating the opportunity to capitalise on the tens of millions of people who have engaged with the airline and may now be interested in travelling on us,” says Mr Tod.
“Much like the internet first opened up the opportunity to sell directly to customers via a company website, so too do many of the social media channels that have now become a part of our everyday lives.
“For a small airline at the bottom of the world we could never afford to reach so many potential customers through traditional marketing channels. The opportunity for both Air New Zealand and New Zealand’s tourism industry is huge.”
Gossip about last month’s filming, particularly with Lindsay, has already reached more than 60 million people via twitter and mainstream media.
Ends
Issued by Air New Zealand Public Affairs
Media Release
The Hoff and Giuliana both lounged around on the Air New Zealand Skycouch on Wednesday, with The Hoff even exchanging his trademark red swimwear for a gift of a jet-black pair of speedos with the word “Kiwi” emblazoned across the rear.
Giuliana is Ryan Seacrest’s co-host on E! News, one of the world’s most influential celebrity television programmes, and The Hoff was most recently one of the judges on the hit show Britain’s Got Talent. He is also well known around the world for previous roles in programmes like Baywatch and Knight Rider.In her shoot with Rico, Giuliana, who has her own reality show too, showed her support for the national rugby team the All Blacks by looking fabulous in an All Blacks t-shirt like only she can.
"Good Luck to the All Blacks for the big one…we will be cheering for the boys in black!" said Giuliana.
The content from this week’s filming will be reviewed when Air New Zealand’s team returns to Auckland next week to decide what makes the cut for the new series due out next month.
Air New Zealand’s General Manager Marketing and Communications Mike Tod, in Los Angeles today, says that global awareness about the airline is at an all time high due to its world-leading products and innovations like the Skycouch and its unique approach to gaining awareness through non-traditional marketing channels.
“Given the Kiwi dollar doesn’t go far in many of the overseas markets we operate in, innovation is critical for us. We are really proud that as a small company at the bottom of the world we are punching well above our weight when it comes to gaining awareness of our world class brand and products.
“As a result, movie studios, celebrities and global brands are wanting to work with us to take advantage of our profile and ability to become the subject of conversation in Western and Eastern markets at relatively low cost compared to more traditional approaches,” says Mr Tod.
Air New Zealand’s innovative marketing has been the subject of coverage around the globe this year, in news outlets including the New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, the Telegraph and the Australian.
In The Hoff’s interview on the Skycouch with Rico at a Hollywood mansion, the star reveals he only flies Air New Zealand from Los Angeles to London, to work on both Britain’s Got Talent and a brand new show, soon to be released by Simon Cowell.
While in Los Angeles, Rico also swung by to see one of the world’s most talked about young female Hollywood celebrities, Lindsay Lohan.
Such is the interest in Lindsay, that leading celebrity gossip website TMZ and online gossip king Perez Hilton have been following her every move and the catch-up with Rico has already become Hollywood news.
“It’s surprised us that no matter how discreet you try to be in Hollywood there are never paparazzi far away,” says Mr Tod.
The Hoff, Giuliana and Lindsay were quickly won over by Rico, already tweeting, about the ‘crazy jet-setting puppet’ to almost 3 million fans. In one message Giuliana tweeted to her husband Bill he ‘better watch out…he [Rico] is a crazy creature’. In another she described him as a ‘hot new TV personality’, warning Ryan Seacrest he may have some competition.
Rico is equally enamoured with his new friends in high places, ‘Hangings out with David Hasselhoff so much fun, he the man’ he tweeted, later adding ‘lucky I havings good fur day’ after meeting the stunning Guiliana.
Gossip about the filming has already reached more than 50 million people via twitter and mainstream media on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. The exact nature of the filming has been kept under wraps.
Previous Rico videos have proven a huge hit, with his recent collaboration with rapper Snoop Dogg attracting more than 600,000 views on You Tube since March.
Ends
Issued by Air New Zealand Public Affairs
#airnewzealand
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all those in the Flight Operations teams who worked so hard last week to maintain safe operations across the Air New Zealand network despite the challenges presented by the ash cloud from Mt Puyehue Cordon Caulle in Chile which drifted across Australia, the Tasman Sea and New Zealand. With ash re-entering Australian airspace today, it looks like they once again have a busy time ahead.
Coordinated by our Chief Pilot David Morgan and Bob Fletcher in Operations Support, the Flight Ops teams and Fleet Managers across each of our fleet types and regional airlines have been working together with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, Met Service and Air Traffic Control/Airways New Zealand to undertake a continuous risk assessment, determine the position of the ash cloud and adapt our flight paths and flight levels to ensure we could continue to operate in ash-free air throughout the week. Whenever we perceived a risk that our clear air requirements would be compromised we ceased services, but fortunately this happened on relatively few occasions.
While a number of other airlines in Australasia initially ceased services, as the week progressed all airlines, with the exception of Qantas and Jetstar, were operating on a similar basis as Air New Zealand.
Air New Zealand’s commitment to adapting its services and accepting the cost of a higher fuel burn to fly longer tracks at lower altitude was very well received by customers and increasingly the media began praising Air New Zealand’s approach as the week progressed.
Behind the scenes however we were constantly battling a series of malicious rumours that emerged from the Australian market and fed to media, suggesting that Air New Zealand had six aircraft in the hangar with ash damage, an aircraft grounded in Australia with ash damage and an aircraft requiring a nose cone replacement as a result of ash damage. All these stories were a complete fiction and I was left scratching my head as to where these false rumours were coming from.
Then at the end of the week, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce sent an email to the Qantas’ eight million frequent flyer customers, trying to justify the decision by Qantas to ground many of its aircraft while all other airlines were flying and implying that airlines like Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia were operating unsafely.
What Alan omitted to mention was that it wasn’t just Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia that had managed to adapt their operations to operate safely in clear air, but all airlines apart from Qantas and Jetstar had managed to achieve the vast majority of their operations. What Alan also failed to mention was that Qantas was very happy to transfer thousands of its customers onto Air New Zealand and other airlines’ services, which seems a strange thing to do for your customers if you have concerns about the safety of the airspace.
Given Mt Puyehue Cordon Caulle continues to erupt, we will continue to see ash clouds drift across the region, like we are today, possibly for weeks and/or months to come. Air New Zealand will continue to adopt a similar approach to that we achieved last week, maintaining operations where we are confident we can do so safely without any heightened risk to our aircraft, crew and passengers.
It is also likely that we will see Qantas and Jetstar come under further customer and media pressure if they continue to adopt this strategy of grounding aircraft and it is possible that we will continue to see misinformation and false rumours emerge in the market.
Hi everyone
We gave it a go last night and thanks to everyone’s enthusiasm our new FB App was brought to its knees (ouch!). The $200 off deal meant around 50% off the cheapest return fares, so it was great to see people snapping them up for around $250 incl taxes (& airport taxes are about $160 of that!).
As you know, the app couldn’t keep up, so it’s in critical care at the moment & we’re now fixing it up. Stay tuned.Thanks
Air New Zealand(as posted on www.facebook.com/airnewzealand)
Well I’m back in Kathmandu as my Himalayan adventure draws to an end. When I last wrote, our team had just arrived at a place called Gorek Shep on our way to Base Camp and I was preparing to celebrate my birthday! Now Gorek Shep isn’t the most attractive of places on first impressions – one of the team’s travel guides described it as a ‘medieval pestilential hell-hole.’
Despite that harsh description, Gorek Shep will always exist in my memory as a very special place! The setting certainly helps
. At Gorek Shep it’s very apparent that you are sitting amongst the most amazing mountain range in the world and you get to experience the Himalayas at their majestic best. We were blessed with fabulous weather while we were there, however, the accommodation is very basic, the toilet facilities even more basic, a shower out of the question, and the food … well let’s just say the novelty had well and truly worn off by day seven. You can only eat so many deep fried mars bars, chicken legs, noodles and rice, all smothered in Yak cheese – and we had the prospect of a 3.30am rise the following morning to climb a peak called Kala Patthar in sub-zero conditions for the best view of Everest, before continuing on to Base Camp at the foot of the Kumbu Ice Fall.
But the team were determined to ensure my 50
th was a birthday to remember and we had an ‘R’ party with everyone dressed in an ‘R’ theme …. Rasta’s abounded, we had a Robot, a ‘Rocky’ (complete with boxing gloves and cape), a Rarotongan Madonna – a lot of creativity was on display. But the surprise of the evening was the Chocolate Birthday Cake, complete with ‘ROB’ candles on top, and the story that went with it.
The reward was some of the most stunning views …..
And then it was several hours more walk on to Everest Base Camp. The elation of finally arriving at Base Camp for the night was a little over-shadowed by the realisation of how harsh this environment is, even before the climbers start their ascent through Camps 1 to 4 on the mountain and on to the summit. It is a huge tent village, built on rocky terrain at the base of Kumbu Ice Fall. The temperatures are well below zero, in fact when you wake in the morning the condensation from your breath has condensed to ice on the inside of your tent. To think that summiteers will spend six weeks here as they acclimatise and progress to their ascent leaves me in complete awe.
There is a regular stream of helicopters that we have seen during our journey coming to Base camp to evacuate injured climbers or to bring home those who have lost their lives. We were aware of two climbers who lost their lives during our journey and there will be others before the two and a half month climbing season is over. It is a sobering reminder of how small the margins of error are in this harsh isolated environment.
From Base Camp, we commenced our descent. I won’t retrace our steps all the way back to the start of the journey, but the big surprise for me was that heading back down was far more challenging than I expected. The combination of the altitude and the energy reserves we had consumed to get to Base Camp began to take their toll, and I for one, had a couple of my most demanding days on the way back down the valley. But whenever I felt really exhausted, or sorry for myself, you only had to look up at the next porter who passed by … heading back up the hill, carrying his 80kg loads of stone, water, cooking oils, reinforcing steel, timber and many other products … and any thought of complaint or stopping for a breather quickly dissipated.
Now back in Kathmandu, there is a real sense of achievement amongst the team. We have all learnt a lot about ourselves, we have had a lot of time to think, we have pushed up to some physical and emotional boundaries and in some cases through those boundaries to discover what’s on the other side. We have explored an amazing part of this planet and met some amazing people, who cope with challenges, hardships and deprivations that are completely foreign to most of us in our daily lives.
I hope you have found these last three messages interesting, and that they have enabled you to share some of this experience with me. Next Friday I’ll be back in Auckland and back in the Hub, and will have my head deep back into the never ending challenges and excitement of Air New Zealand. Three weeks away has only served to remind me how strong my passion is.Rob
Behind the scenes on our funky flight back to the 80s with workout superstar Richard Simmons, who keeps the party going even when the camera's not rolling!
Check Air New Zealand's Channel http://www.youtube.com/airnewzealand for more fun from this high-energy airline.Richard Simmons helps get Air New Zealand passengers Fit to Fly
Air New Zealand’s safety ambassador for its new inflight safety video is US fitness legend Richard Simmons. Starting today, Simmons will be putting Air New Zealand customers through their paces, as he takes them step-by-step through the airline’s pre-flight safety briefing.
The inflight video features Air New Zealand cabin crew and Les Mills fitness instructors working out in colourful lycra, fluorescent leg warmers and sweat bands.
Simmons is also assisted in conveying the key safety messages with some celebrity cameo roles by the Amazing Race presenter Phil Keoghan, sporting a bright yellow headband, television personality Paul Henry, in orange shorts and pink sweat band, and Silver Fern Temepara George in some stunning silver hot pants.
Watch carefully and you may even catch a glimpse of Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe who donned pink shorts and a purple head band for the occasion.
Simmons, accompanied by the cabin crew, shows passengers the essential safety information, including how to “stretch like a giraffe” to put baggage into the overhead lockers, and Simmons’ favourite move “the duck”.
‘Fit to Fly’ follows on from the airline’s hugely successful recent inflight safety videos, which have totalled more than 7,000,000 views on YouTube, including ‘Bare Essentials of Safety’ which featured body-painted staff and ‘Crazy About Rugby’ featuring All Blacks players including captain Richie McCaw.
Air New Zealand General Manager Marketing and Communications Mike Tod says the new in-flight safety briefing again features Air New Zealand cabin crew, working alongside Simmons, to convey the safety messages.
“Safety is paramount and non-negotiable at Air New Zealand, and Fit to Fly will again get our passengers sitting up and taking notice of these important pre-flight messages in an engaging and fun way,” says Mr Tod. “Simmons’ fitness moves will definitely ensure that all eyes are on the safety briefing.”
The new ‘Fit to Fly’ safety video goes live today onboard Air New Zealand’s narrowbody aircraft fleets, and will also be showing on the airline’s widebody aircraft from 1 May.
The music track featured on the inflight safety video is a specially recorded version of Yazz’s 1980s hit record ‘The Only Way is Up’, performed by New Zealand singer Leza Corban.
